Funny Business

It looks like Santa has landed himself on the ‘nice’ list this year and earned a 4 percent raise. St. Nick, who earned a little more than $139,000 last year, will bring in $143,000 this Christmas, according to Insure.com’s Santa Index. The insurance information provider uses wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in …

It’s the one night candymakers and dentists come together, preparing to cash in. One will make a killing now, the other … later. Happy Halloween. The National Confectioners Association (I wanna run for president of that!) predicts this year Americans will spend $2.6 billion on Halloween. That’s $8 for every man, woman and child. Why …

Tony Dighera was working long hours, losing sleep and running low on money. But the organic farmer from California had a Great Pumpkin Dream. The dream was to grow pumpkins into shapes, using molds, and become rich harvesting the Frankenfruit and selling it for top dollar. “I couldn’t make it work,” he said. “I tried …

Interviewing for a job can be a long and tortuous dance akin to getting an MRI of the brain. It requires a lot of patience in a stressful situation, as manager after manager pounds you with questions like so many banging magnets. But not always. Glassdoor.com has released its first “Candidates’ Choice Awards,” where job …

Times are changing, and emojis are everywhere. They’re in Hollywood movies, bank passwords and even workplace emails. It’s easy to blame millennials, who grew up on smiley and winky faces and now make up the majority of the workforce. But there’s one problem: Millennials aren’t the only ones who support using emojis at work. In …

The aircraft Solar Impulse isn’t the only unusual item being powered by the sun. Why shouldn’t everything be powered by the sun? It’s the most powerful thing in the solar system! That’s why it’s called the SOLAR system. Here are five more unusual items already using solar energy. Cars Solar-powered cars have been in development for …

Samsung’s smartphones might be losing market share, but the South Korean tech giant is em-barking into a new area—hi-tech, luxury dog kennels. On Wednesday, Samsung Electronics unveiled the “Dream Doghouse,” which cost £20,000 ($30,600) to make. Aimed at “tech-savvy pampered pooches,” the one-off design will be on display this month at Crufts, the world’s largest …

The stakes in Monopoly just got higher, at least for 80 lucky buyers in France. To commemorate the game’s 80th anniversary, Monopoly’s French manufacturers have replaced its fake notes with real money, according to The Guardian. Only one set will contain the bonanza, in which the entire bank is been replaced with real bills for …

If it’s harder to resist hitting that snooze button come Monday morning, well, you won’t be the only worker trudging in a bit late. Just resist the urge to lie about why. One in 4 workers is late at least once a month, according to a new survey of 3,000 workers and 2,100 hiring managers from …

Full of global leaders, policymakers, business gurus and the odd music star, the attendees at the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos aren’t short of a dollar or two. But they might well be at the end of the week — with some of the food prices around town proving to be a little hard to …

New Year’s Eve is one of the biggest nights of the year for champagne sales. New Year’s Day is one of the biggest days of the year for hangover cures. Trying to erase the bad aftereffects of a late night has moved beyond hot coffee, or “hair of the dog that bit you.” Hangover cures …

Drivers in Los Angeles pride themselves on their ability to strategize the daily commute. Every day presents a new challenge: Find the best shortcut, the secret alternative route, to shave off precious minutes from a cruel trek. “Saturday Night Live’s” “The Californians” is played for laughs, but it rings true. As a reporter in Los …

Italy might be the birthplace of pizza, but good luck trying to find a slice from the pizza giants there. The closest you’ll get to ordering a 14-inch pie in the land of the Romans during National Pizza Month, which began Wednesday, is visiting Pizza Inn in Italy, Texas. While pizza growth in the country of Italy …

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“Nightly Business Report produced by CNBC” (NBR) is an award-winning and highly-respected nightly business news program that airs on public television. Television’s longest-running evening business news broadcast, “NBR” features in-depth coverage and analysis of the biggest financial news stories of the day and access to some of the world’s top business leaders and policy makers.